June 13, 2025 • 43 mins
Dr. James Bryant shares his transformative approach to helping engineers achieve professional excellence without sacrificing personal fulfillment. He discusses his unique methodology for balancing work and home life, developing leadership skills, and creating meaningful success.
Main Topics:
- Transitioning from engineering to coaching
- The "Engineer Your Success" methodology
- Developing emotional intelligence
- Strategic time management
- Leadership skills for technical professionals
- Identifying and living core personal values
About the guest: Dr. James Bryant, Ph.D., P.E., is a seasoned civil engineer and leadership coach with over 20 years of experience managing major transportation projects and contributing to national technical committees. Formerly with the Transportation Research Board, he provided executive oversight for more than 22 volunteer committees.
Now the founder of Engineer Your Success LLC, James helps engineers and business owners align professional goals with personal well-being. A certified John Maxwell speaker and Master Certified Professional Coach, he emphasizes achieving success without sacrificing fulfillment. His free resource, "The Engineer’s Blueprint for a Balanced Life," offers practical guidance for work-life harmony.
James also hosts the Engineer Your Success podcast, where he shares leadership insights and interviews industry experts. His coaching and speaking engagements are known for their engaging, value-driven approach to achieving sustainable success in both career and life.
LINKS:
Engineer Your Success LLC Website
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
James Bryant (00:00):
After which we say, Okay, now let's look at
(00:02):
your calendar. Are you spendingyour time on the things that you
say that are important to you?
And if you are great, that'swonderful. You. Hello and
welcome to the being an engineerpodcast. Today's guest is Dr
(00:28):
James Bryant, PhD and PE, aseasoned civil engineer turned
engineering coach and thefounder of engineer your success
LLC, with over two decades ofexperience in transportation
infrastructure and leadershipdevelopment, James now helps
engineers and business ownersachieve professional excellence
without sacrificing personalfulfillment. He's also the host
(00:51):
of the engineer your successpodcast, where he shares
strategies for winning at workand at home. James, thank you so
much for being with us today.
Oh, Aaron, it is my pleasure tobe here, and thank you so much
for having me on the show. Areyou sure that are my
qualifications okay for theshow? Because you have some
(01:11):
distinguished people here, soI'm thinking, you know, how did
I actually make the cut?
Aaron Moncur (01:17):
That's very kind of you to say, yeah. We're
talking about a little snafuwith a high What do I want to
say? Just kind of a famousengineer right before this? And
so anyway, James, you are morethan qualified to be here, and I
really appreciate you sharingyour time and all of the insight
and wisdom that you'll besharing with us here on the show
today. Yeah, I'm looking forwardto it. All right. So what? What
(01:40):
made you decide to become anengineer all those years ago?
Oh,
James Bryant (01:44):
man. You know, it's interesting when I look
back in terms of childhood andgrowing up, I was always good at
math and science. However, I didnot start off going into
engineering, per se, when I wentto the Philadelphia high school
for engineering and science, andwas doing well there. But when I
(02:06):
first started out in college, Iwas at Drexel University, and I
majored in commerce andengineering, which was business
with an engineering background.
At that time, it was a reallycool major for me, but I was
kind of that hybrid didn't workwell, because all of the
engineering companies, when itcame time to do internships,
they wanted people with moreengineering background. The
(02:26):
business folks, when it cametime for internships, wanted you
to be more in business. Soeventually I decided to switch
over to civil engineering, and Ithink it was the the impact of
the projects. I could seeroadways and I could see
bridges, and it to me, it waslooking at that impact. I wanted
(02:48):
to help make an impact onsociety and on communities.
Aaron Moncur (02:55):
We haven't had a lot of civil engineers on this
show. There have been a handfulover the years, and one of our
previous civil engineeringguests said something that
struck me as really interestingand something I hadn't
considered before. They talkedabout how, you know, I'm, I'm a
Product Design Engineer, right?
Or that's what I've done, isproduct design over the years.
(03:15):
Right now, we do some automationequipment and things like that
machine building. Butregardless, the things that me
and my teams build, they'reusually around for a few years,
right? And and then they kind ofgo away, yeah? But a civil
engineer, the things that thatyou all build are there for, you
know, 10s, if not hundreds ofyears, which is really kind of a
(03:36):
cool perspective to have,
James Bryant (03:40):
yeah, they're designed to be there for a
lifetime. I mean, we don'tdesign things that are not meant
to last, so we want to make surethat they last. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur (03:51):
yeah. Well, you spent quite a long time in civil
engineering and then eventually,kind of made your way into this
coaching profession. Tell us alittle bit about how that that
journey went for you. Well,
James Bryant (04:04):
you know, when I graduated from Virginia Tech
with my PhD, I kind of had mygrand plan. I was going to work
in the public sector for threeto five years, or work in the
private sector for three to fiveyears and then work at the
national level and then go to auniversity and teach and or
start a consulting firm. So overthe years, I started off working
(04:25):
for a highway maintenancecontractor. I did that for three
to five years, managingmaintenance on roadways and
bridges all across the country.
Then I took a role at theVirginia Department of
Transportation, where I wasmanaging their contract
maintenance unit. Then I spend asignificant amount of time
working for the TransportationResearch Board, looking at
really high level appliedresearch in transportation
(04:48):
infrastructure. And so all ofthis is fine, and along the way,
the thing that began to intrigueme was being able to mentor and
COVID. Coach, teammates, mentorand coach groups with
contractors, being able tofacilitate effective
communication when you'rebringing different people from
across the country, from acrossthe world, to try to address a
(05:10):
particular transportation issue,and being able to facilitate and
bring all of that in to create asolution. That process spoke to
me, that process began to callme, so I started to get more
into coaching. Did some lifecoaching certification, business
coaching certification.
(05:31):
Eventually got a John Maxwellteam certified leadership
trainer and coach. And then, asI was helping clients to provide
solutions for them. A strangething happened, Aaron, I began
to enjoy that more than Ienjoyed the engineering work
(05:52):
that I
Aaron Moncur (05:53):
was doing. Was this a surprise to you?
James Bryant (05:56):
I think it was a surprise. It shouldn't have
been, but it was a surprise,because I'm the type where I
typically enjoy what I do. I'mnot, if I don't enjoy it, I'm
not going to do it. So I thinkthe surprise was that I didn't
foresee that it was going topull me away.
Aaron Moncur (06:15):
So you started coaching. You got more and more
into it, you realized, wow, thisis really my calling. This is
what I want to be spending mytime doing nowadays. First of
all, how long has it been since,since you've first dipped your
toe in the pond of coaching andwhat is your focus these days?
When with your your coacheeclients,
James Bryant (06:39):
it's been seven years since I initially dipped
my toe into coaching. It's beenalmost three years since I've
been doing coaching, consulting,leadership development full
time. So that's kind of thething. And the interesting thing
in terms of generally what wework on, is helping people
understand that you don't haveto choose, per se between
(07:03):
excellence at work andexcellence in life. They don't
necessarily have to compete witheach other, but you can create a
life or a system for yourselfwhere you can achieve excellence
in both.
Aaron Moncur (07:18):
Some engineering buzzwords coming out already, a
system. I love that. Yeah, solet's talk about that a little
bit. You have this focus onexcellence in the workplace and
personal life are not mutuallyexclusive. What? What are some
of the obstacles that youcommonly see engineers falling
(07:38):
into that that maybe makes itdifficult to experience
excellence in both work andpersonal lives.
James Bryant (07:45):
It's interesting.
I would say the first one is,and it goes along the lines of
what I say a lot on my podcast.
And I'll say here is thatengineers are people too, and so
the same things that peoplestruggle with, in general,
engineers struggle with butthey're not many people that are
(08:07):
going to sit and talk to them ina way that they may or that
they're not many people that aregoing to talk to them in a way
that they can actually hear andreceive it at times. But what I
like to say is that the numberone thing that gets in the way
is people don't always thinkthat they deserve excellence in
both.
Aaron Moncur (08:27):
Oh, that's very interesting. Let's, let's hear a
little bit more about that. Whydo you think that's the case?
James Bryant (08:31):
You know, we come in. We come from a discipline
where you're constantlyachieving, you're constantly
designing, you're constantlyjudging, right? It's all the
time. It's what we have to do.
And so they don't. There'salways this self judgment that's
present. And there are manypeople that do excellent work,
(08:53):
but it's not it's they neverthink that it's good enough.
There's always something more.
And I get the continuousimprovement process, and so I'm
not downing that, but therecomes a point where you have to
be able to say, this is okay,like it's okay for me to do
well, it's okay for me to enjoylife and okay for me to be
(09:14):
excellent at work.
Aaron Moncur (09:16):
Do you think that's the case for most
professions, or do you thinkthere's something unique or
different about engineers thatmakes it more difficult for them
to accept that, that possibilityin life.
James Bryant (09:29):
The first, my first, I guess, response, is
that I think it's mostprofessions, the engineers, I
believe, sometimes, at least forthe clients that I have, there
are times when they get caughtin analysis paralysis, where
they're continuously thinking,they're continuously turning,
(09:51):
continuously fiddling and notnecessarily moving forward. That
doesn't necessarily address thethey don't feel worthy, or they
don't. Feel good enough, or theydon't feel deserving. But the
other thing that gets in the wayis analysis paralysis and the
inability to delegate.
Aaron Moncur (10:09):
What's the phrase something like Perfection is the
enemy of good? Or Perfection isthe enemy of done something like
that? I do think there'ssomething to that. You know,
engineers specifically, we wantto make things perfect, and we
sometimes have trouble walkingaway from a problem until it's
perfect, which, you know, in ourideal world would be all the
(10:31):
time we do a perfect solution,but the commercial realities of
the business of engineering makeit so that we usually can't make
it perfect, not if we want to beprofitable on the job as well,
and a valuable meaning,meaningful contributor to your
organization, sometimes goodenough has to be good enough,
James Bryant (10:52):
yes, good enough is not necessarily bad, right?
Yes. And that that's that's howthat shows up with most of my
clients.
Aaron Moncur (11:04):
I saw a quote. It was Aiken's law of, uh,
aerospace design, or somethinglike that online. It was, it
was, I think it was shared byIan mccathern. Shout out to my
buddy Ian out there, who's beenon the show several times
himself, and he shared thisquote. It was like Akins law
number eight or something. Andit said, I'm going to
(11:25):
paraphrase, there is nojustification for making a
design one bit better than therequirements specify. And I
loved that so much. Like itgoes, it goes contrary to, you
know, kind of our naturalinclinations, I think, as
engineers, right? Because wewant to make it perfect. But
(11:46):
again, when you step back fromlike, you know, just the
practical business ofengineering, there's no
justification for making adesign one bit better than the
requirements specify. I
James Bryant (11:58):
love that. That's true, and I love it. And
speaking of requirementsspecified, another thing that
I've run into is that clientsunderstand what they want from
their profession, from theirjob, from their businesses, from
their work. It's a little bitmore elusive when you start
defining what does success looklike in their life.
Aaron Moncur (12:22):
You have a methodology that you call
engineer your success. Yes,let's hear a little bit about
that. What is the engineer yoursuccess methodology?
James Bryant (12:31):
Well, first again, first and foremost, is we dispel
of this myth of balance, right?
I dispel of this myth becausebalance means things are equal.
They're not always going to beequal. I you when I first
started out, I had the engineersblueprint for balanced life. Now
that has emerged, or kind ofevolved into the engineers
(12:52):
blueprint for success. Sothere's still four steps in the
process. Number one, let's focuson what matters most. Let's
begin to dig up what are yourvalues, what's really important
to you. And then so we takeclients through a process where
we ask them, what's important.
We're able to take that down. Wego through this iterative
(13:12):
process, after which we say,Okay, now let's look at your
calendar. Are you spending yourtime on the things that you say
that are important to you, andif you are great, that's
wonderful in most cases, though,here they're not. They say
family is important. They saygetting a promotion is
(13:34):
important, or improving aparticular technical skill is
important. But when we begin tolook at the one resource that we
can't make any more of, which isour time. Now, you can use your
time more efficiently, butthere's still going to be 24
hours in the day. You're notgoing to make any more of it.
And when we look at thatresource and it doesn't line up,
they have a decision to make,either you're going to restate
(13:59):
what's important to you based onhow you're spending or investing
your time, or you're going tosay, okay, these things are
important to me. Now let'sdesign a plan where these things
can line up. So that's stepnumber two. We help clients
design a very detailed plan tohelp them get from where they
are to where they want to be,and we also help them to
(14:19):
visualize that process. And sostep two, three, visualization
is in there because I want themto see. What does success look
like. You know, if you're ableto invest your time in this
manner, what is that going tolook like? What impact is that
going to have on your career?
What impact is that going tohave on your business? Are you
(14:40):
now going to be able to get thepromotion? Are you now going to
be able to be home for dinner,whatever, however they define
success, which is why, when wetalk about success, when we talk
about what's important to you,we look at both work and home in
the the last step I. Is execute.
(15:02):
So what matters most, visualizewhat success looks like. Design
a plan, execute on that plan inthe way that I approach work,
life balance is a question thatI had to ask myself many years
ago when my youngest son wasborn. He was born at 26 weeks in
(15:23):
a day. I was working inWashington, DC, at the time. I
live in Richmond, Virginia, so Ihad an hour and a half, two hour
commute going each way. And, youknow, you get the the tight
shoulders and arms becauseyou're driving and you're just
really stressful. And I wasdoing that. I was I was making
it work. It work. It was mydream. Job was a great
opportunity for me, and so whenmy son was born, I'm sitting
(15:46):
here. We have a 14 month here athome. We got a newborn baby
that's there. My wife isstruggling because, you know, we
she we had the baby prematurely,and I had to ask myself, Aaron,
do you want to win at work? Iwas like, Yeah, I do. I really
do want to win at work. And Ithink I am. Do you want to win
(16:08):
at home? And I don't knowanybody, when I ask that
question, that they're going tosay, no. Now some engineers may
say, Well, what are you Whydon't you define winning? I
don't understand. Okay, I getthat right. It's not for me to
define what winning is like foryou, but it's for you. So do you
want to win at home? And thethird question was, am I winning
(16:30):
at work and at home? And becauseI could not answer that
question, yes, at that time,that led me on this journey to
develop the engineers blueprintfor success,
Aaron Moncur (16:45):
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what is the engineers blueprintfor success? Is that the four
(17:30):
step methodology that you justwalked us through? Okay, yeah,
great.
James Bryant (17:33):
That's the four step methodology, and we
typically will. I start almostany engagement by asking those
three questions.
Aaron Moncur (17:43):
Got it, are you winning at work? Or do you want
to win at work? Do you want towin at home? Are you? Yep, yeah.
That that can be a I'm thinkingback to your comments about
looking at your calendar andquantifying where you're
spending your time. And I thinkthat can be a hard pill for a
lot of us to swallow, right?
Probably most of us are going tosay, Well, my family is what's
(18:05):
most important to me. Mostpeople, I think, are just going
to default to that, not tominimize, right, that answer,
but probably that's where we'regoing to go. And then when we
look at our calendars, I knowlooking at myself, I've got my
Work calendar planned to a Tbeginning of every week. That is
where I start. I fill out mycalendar. These are the goals I
have for this week. Here is thetime I'm going to spend working
(18:29):
towards those goals. And youknow, by end of the morning on
Monday, I've got my week prettymuch all scheduled out, but I
don't do that for my family. Andso you know what? What does that
say? That? Like I said, thiscould be a tough pill to
swallow,
James Bryant (18:47):
and I think it is a tough pill to swallow, but
it's one worth swallowing. Andthe way that I like to frame it
is like nobody's here to judgeyou or anybody else for not
building out their schedulearound their family like that,
right? So, okay, great. Thequestion that I would have is,
are there areas with your familythat you want to improve, and if
(19:11):
there are areas that you want toimprove, then let's begin to
work in some scheduling, sometime to work on those areas of
improvement.
Aaron Moncur (19:22):
That is a simple but powerful tool. I know, using
a calendar strategically, theway I do for work is super
effective for getting thingsdone at work, right? It's almost
it's like I'm outsourcing myplanning to my calendar. Once
it's in the calendar, all I haveto do is follow the calendar.
It's easy, and so why not dothat with my personal life as
(19:44):
well? And
James Bryant (19:45):
I think the the answer is because, or a an
additional challenge is the factthat it's either it's your wife,
your kids, it's life. Stuff ishappening all the time, and it's
very dynamic. True. It's true.
It requires. It requiresdedication to communication.
Yeah, you have to activelycommunicate everything that's
(20:08):
going on so that your familylife will know what's happening.
So I do have a quick story aboutone client was a retired doctor.
And first, you know, he wastelling me how he his assistant
used to handle his calendar andhe, you know, now that she's
(20:29):
gone, he doesn't know what todo. And I'm like, Okay, well,
let's work on calendaring. Andhe's like, Well, I hate
calendaring. I never I hate itbecause the reminders come up
and I never it. Never, actually,I never follow it. It's like,
okay, well, what do you want towork on? Well, eventually, you
know, James was really importantto me, is the relationship with
(20:49):
my adult children. Wow, you knowwhat? What's going on? Well,
when I was building the medicalpractice, I spent a lot of time
building that practice andworking and not a lot of time
building relationships with mychildren, so I want to invest in
those relationships. So westarted going through this
(21:12):
process of really what mattersmost to you, but where we
started was with this calendar.
It's like, what? What are youtalking about? He tells you he
wants to do the relationships.
Why are you starting with thecalendar? So what we started
doing is saying, Okay, what'sreally what? What are the other
things that are important toyou? He's like, Well, he wants
to do some continuing education,some community service and some
(21:35):
other things. Because he'sretired now he has more time. So
let's get in the process ofbuilding your calendar around
those things that really matterto you. But I want to work on my
trust me. Let's do this for afew weeks. Let's get this, you
know, moving so he startedcalendaring two weeks past we
were on our call. He's like,this is great. Everything is
(21:56):
wonderful, falling into place,but one of my friends called and
they wanted to do something.
They wanted to go out to lunch,and I didn't have any space on
my calendar for it, because Ihad overbooked everything. So
Aaron, I'm like, okay, great.
Now what you do, and I want youto do, is create some gaps or
margin in your calendar forthose types of events. Doesn't
(22:18):
have to be every day. It couldbe once a week. Here's a time
that you're going to be able todelegate and flex to to say,
this is when you want to havelunch or do something with one
of your friends. So we starteddoing that. That starts working.
Well, then it was, hey, I knowwhen we first started this
engagement, you wanted to workon the relationship with your
(22:39):
adult children. Here's what Iwant you to do. I want you to
schedule some time on yourcalendar to talk to them. It's
like what I don't want them tothink that they're just a
commodity or another thing thatI have to do. Understand. Here's
what I want you to do. I wantyou to call them one on one,
say, Hey, I've been working witha coach, working to get things
(23:00):
in order to so that I can focuson those things that really
matter to me. And I want you toknow that you matter to me. So I
would love to spend 30 minutes aweek just dedicated time talking
to you. And he was skeptical. Hedid not think it was going he
(23:20):
had four children, three boys,one girl. So the three boys were
like, This is great. Their own.
Their comments were, is this theonly time that I'm going to get
a chance to talk to you? Can wetalk more? And he's like, yes.
And but his daughter rememberedall of the missed dinners,
(23:42):
remembered all of themisengagements, and was holding
on to that because she did notbelieve that things were going
to change. So he came to mepretty distraught about that,
and I said, Hey, this is what Iwant you to do. I still want you
to schedule that 30 minute timefor your daughter, but during
that time, if she doesn't showup, what I want you to do is to
(24:05):
start a gratitude practice, andI want you to start writing down
everything that you're gratefulfor, for your daughter, every
the woman that she's you know,become the person that she is.
What are you grateful for? Andhe started on that, and I also
encouraged him to start prayingfor his daughter. And from I was
like, Look, I want you to prayfor your daughter. Don't pray
(24:26):
that she changes. Don't none ofthat. Just pray for her well
being. So he started doing that.
About a month later, hisdaughter started showing up for
his the 30 minute calls. And sothat's a a way in which
calendaring, focusing on whatmatters most, can help you
achieve the success that youwant.
Aaron Moncur (24:48):
That's beautiful.
It's such a simple, deceptivelysimple tool and strategy, but so
powerful, right? Wow. Well, thisis typically the part where I
take a break and do a littleplug for. My company, but I'm
not going to do that today. I'mgoing to do something a little
bit different. I'm going to tellyou all about PDX, our product
development Expo, which iscoming up October 21 and 22nd in
Phoenix. It is an in personevent, two day in person event.
(25:13):
The cool thing about PDX is it'sa continuing education
opportunity for engineers. Sohere's what you can do. If you
show up at PDX, you can sign upfor literally, like a dozen. In
fact, there are dozens oftraining topics or training
sessions that you can attend,and these are like, in person,
(25:33):
practical, hands on training.
It's not like a person on apodium talking at you. You're
down there in the trenches withwhoever's doing the training
you're learning this ispractical information that you
can apply to your job rightaway. And the training topics,
for example, things likeadvanced surface modeling in CAD
(25:55):
or DFM for plastic injectionmolding and CNC machining,
Vision inspection, gluedispensing, plating and
finishing technologies, Gd and Tmetrology, inspection
techniques, like all these, allthese topics that are relevant
and important for engineersdeveloping physical products.
That's what you will learn at atPDX. It's going to be a great
(26:18):
time. You'll you'll meet otherengineers, like minded
engineers, you'll meet vendorsthere, you'll get training. And
we're excited. We're superexcited to see everyone there.
So that's October 21 and 22ndwe've rented out an entire
convention center for this. It'sgoing to be fun. It's going to
be a big deal. And we hope youmake it so that's it that ended
(26:39):
up being way longer than thetypical plug, I say, but
hopefully more interesting,since it's something different
than the typical plug. Yeah. Allright, so getting back to James,
Dr James here. What? Let's talkabout leadership. So for
engineers out there who want tomove into a leadership
environment or a leadershiprole, what are some skills that
(27:02):
you suggest they develop tomanage technical individuals,
other engineers,
James Bryant (27:10):
you have to be able to effectively communicate.
To me, that's number one. If youcan communicate, then you can't
equip your team to do what theyneed to do, you can't give them
the information that's needed tobe able to adequately complete a
task. So I will say that'snumber one. Number two is you
have to learn how to delegate.
And that's this is wherecommunication comes back, comes
(27:34):
back in, because if you want todelegate a task and you don't
communicate what yourexpectations are, what ex what
it is exactly that you wantyou're going to fail to give
them what they need to actuallydeliver. I think another one is
effective listening. You know,really being able to actively
(27:57):
listen to folks, to your teammembers, to understand what's
actually going on, to hearwhat's behind the question, or
what's behind the hesitation.
Aaron Moncur (28:11):
Yeah, sorry. Say that once more. I was reading
one of my notes. I'm justkidding. All right, active
listening. I actually do want toask you a question about this,
because I've heard this advicemy whole life, right? Active
listening is not thinking aboutwhat you want to say next. It's
intentionally focusing on whatyour counterpart is saying to
(28:31):
you. It's being in that momentand really listening. So I
struggle with that, if I'm beingcompletely honest, I feel like
this might be my own head trashhere, right? Other stuff that
I've dealt with in my life, butI've always felt like I'm not
the smartest person out there,like I struggle to keep up with
the intelligence of otherpeople, and if I don't feel like
(28:52):
I'm prepared on what to saynext, it makes me feel very
uncomfortable. I feel like likeI'm falling behind in the
conversation, like I'm not doingmy part, like I'm not coming
across as a smart person,whatever smart means. And when I
do spend a little bit of mymental resources, like thinking
(29:13):
about, okay, he said this,that's an interesting point. I'd
like to come back to that and,like, bring this other point
into it and see what he says. Ifeel like that that works for
me. What would you say to peoplewho are like, you know, active
listening is is great, but Ifeel like I need to do a little
(29:34):
bit of distracted listening aswell so that I can effectively
participate in the conversation,am I just kidding myself, or is
there, is there something tothat?
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James Bryant (30:31):
I think there is something to it. What I would
ask you is, have you experiencedany negative impacts of not
being the quote, unquote, activelistener that you think you
could be.
Aaron Moncur (30:45):
So this is great.
Your coaching is just shiningthrough. James, first of all, I
love that you phrased that as aquestion, right? You didn't just
tell me something. You asked me,which really makes me introspect
and more thoughtful about theanswer. And then you just
brought up a really great point,like, here's a tool to know if
it's not black and white, right?
Most of life is not black andwhite. You either do it this
(31:06):
way, or you do it or you're notdoing it correctly. There are
gradients in gray areas. Sothat's a great qualifier. Do I
feel like I've had negativeexperiences or problems with the
way that I listen. And generallyspeaking, I'd say, No, I don't
feel like I have those problems.
So great. All
James Bryant (31:25):
right, there's no real there's no real need to
even get into that discussionwith you. And so I would ask
other folks, if you findyourself being a distracted
listener. See, I think adistracted listener isn't able
to respond in a moment, adistracted listener is so
focused on what they want to saythat they don't see the changes,
(31:48):
the shift, the nuances of whatthe other person is saying, and
so they're so blinded by wherethey want to go that they can't
see where the other person isleading. That's not what you
described,
Aaron Moncur (32:02):
right? Yes, I this is a very what's the empowering
that's not quite the right word.
Can't think of the right word,but I feel like you've given me
permission to listen the waythat I think is effective for
me, which is a good feeling, andI think it illustrates another
principle of leadership, whichis, what do we really care
(32:24):
about, versus the morebureaucratic method of well, the
policy says to do this, so thisis what we're going to do. And
James, what you just helped meunderstand is, what do I really
care about? Is it 100% active,listening, never thinking any
tangential thoughts. Is thatwhat I really care about, or is
what I really care about, havingan effective conversation and
(32:47):
really communicating with theother party? And if that comes
along with a small percentage ofdistracted listening, that's
okay, because the goal is to
James Bryant (32:58):
have a conversation. Yeah, I don't call
it distracted listening. I thinkwhen you're what you described
to me, you said the other personis talking, you're listening,
and you say, that was a goodpoint. So you're acknowledging
and you're mentally that thisperson made a good point. You're
also making a connection saying,oh, I want to bring that up
(33:19):
because I want to connect it tothis other point, because I
think it will benefit you. No,it'll benefit the conversation.
Aaron Moncur (33:28):
There you go, taking it back to the why?
James Bryant (33:31):
Yep, it benefits the conversation. So if all of
your thoughts are focused againon you and what you want, as
opposed to where theconversation is going, or
support, as opposed to theperson that you're communicating
to what they want, that becomesthe problem. So it may be how we
define it.
Aaron Moncur (33:51):
You have helped fix a problem for me in this
quick conversation already. Thisis something that I've, I
wouldn't say, struggled with,but it's been, you know, gnawing
at the back of my mind for manyyears, and you've helped me to
reframe it in a way that that isacceptable for my own brain. So
thank you. Thank you very much.
You're quite welcome. All right,let's move into emotional
(34:12):
intelligence now. I think thisis an area where good leaders
have strong emotionalintelligence, but engineers, in
particular, I think we strugglewith emotional intelligence,
right? We'd rather look at ourshoes than look at someone in
the eyes and see what theirfacial expressions are saying.
At least, that is thestereotype. Now, to be honest, I
know plenty of engineers whohave excellent emotional
(34:34):
intelligence, but I thinkthere's some truth that, like on
the whole right, there is thatstereotype for a reason. So how?
How do engineers go aboutdeveloping emotional
intelligence? The first
James Bryant (34:50):
thing I would say is, is it important to you? If
you look at what you want to doand how you define success, is
emotional intelligence importantto you? I would say probably
some. Own. But it's not up to meto make that definition for you.
If you're going to lead peopleand you're going to be leading
an organization, then you needsome level of emotional
(35:10):
intelligence. Then you probablyneed to work to get better at
that, better at that part of itis growing in your level of
awareness that there is a thingcalled Emotional intelligence,
that there is there are otherpeople that are out there that
process information differentlythan you do. And this isn't
necessarily a straight emotionalintelligence analogy or story,
(35:35):
but I like to say thateverything I needed to learn
about communication I learned inthe first three years of
marriage, because my wife and Icommunicated differently, so I
had to learn how to package theinformation that I wanted to
deliver in a way that she couldreceive it and make a decision
or do something with it. Yes,no, maybe whatever it was, it
(35:55):
had to be packaged in a way thatshe could do that and to me that
was responding or beingemotionally intelligent in
effective communication in thatcontext, because if I'm
continuously talking in one wayor trying to deliver information
in a way that is an that shecan't hear, she can't hear me
because of the way that I'mpresenting it, that becomes an
(36:17):
issue.
Aaron Moncur (36:18):
Let me think about how I want to phrase this, this
next question, core values. Iknow that in my company in
pipeline, we have core values.
We have four core values. Numberone is, treat our customers
well, treat our team membersbetter. Number two is governed
by productivity, notbureaucracy. Number three is
(36:39):
suffocate chaos, promote order,and number four is prevent
surprises, bad surprises, goodsurprises are okay, and they
have really shaped the culturehere at Pipeline. In fact, I
don't think it's a stretch tosay that we are still in
business because of our culture,which, again, has been shaped by
(37:00):
our core values. Core valuesthat we talk about on a regular
basis, we make decisions basedon those. We recognize regularly
our team members for livingthose core values. So I
understand the importance ofcore values, at least in a
business setting, because that'stypically where they're talked
about, but there are also corevalues in in our personal lives,
(37:22):
right? Yes, and maybe that's notsomething we talk about as
often, because, well, I don'tknow why, but it isn't. How have
you helped your your coachingclients, identify what's really
important to them from apersonal standpoint, so that
they can align theirprofessional goals with their
(37:43):
personal goals.
James Bryant (37:47):
That's a very good question. The one comment that I
would make is, while you're as acompany, your core values shape
your culture, but your culturehelped to help to create those
core values. In the verybeginning, you helped to create
those core values was part ofwho you are, who you are. In
(38:07):
those things begin to resonatewith you. So there's a kind of
those things work hand in hand,because as the leader or owner
of a company, part of those corevalues are part of who you are
and how you operate.
Aaron Moncur (38:22):
I think that's a really important point. And I
think you're right. The corevalues they did come from me. In
this case, I'm the leader of thecompany. I think generally
speaking, core values alwayshave to come from whoever's at
the top right. They trickle downthroughout the organization and
not the other way around.
James Bryant (38:43):
Yeah. And then after so and what happens is
that, as you continue to evolve,there may be things that become
important to you, that mayemerge as values for you, and
eventually what you'll find isthat those will begin to trickle
into what the company does. Andthen, so that that's would be
the starting point. But in termsof helping people go through
(39:04):
their personal core values, wedo have some worksheets and
exercises that we take clientsthrough discover your core
values. We're asking you severalquestions to really understand
what resonates with you and whatreally defines who you are. But
it goes back to when we talkabout what focus on, what
matters most. Okay, here areyour core values. Why are they
(39:24):
your core values? Like, let'stalk about why. How are you
actually living them out?
Because if you're not livingthem out on a day to day basis,
are they really your corevalues, or are they just good
things to say, platitudes on awall? Yeah. So you have to be
able to, this is from a companyperspective, from a leadership
perspective, from a personalperspective, you have to live
(39:46):
out your core values. That's,that's part of being core if you
think about, you know, amaterial, a material that has
weak core strength, is going tobe a weak material, right? It's
going to be brittle. It's notyou're it's not going to be able
to withstand whatever the loadis going to be, right? Yeah, if
you think about core strength asan individual, and you're
(40:08):
working on your abs, or yourcore strength, if you don't have
a strong core, it's going to behard for you to carry the load.
And you use your core all thetime. Everything you lift, every
time you move. There's not atime that you're doing something
where you really don't use apart of your core. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur (40:31):
All right, James, well, let's see. We'll start
wrapping things up here. What?
What are your goals for yourcompany moving forward, how do
you plan to continue expandingyour impact in the engineering
and the coaching arena?
James Bryant (40:53):
I thought about this question. This is a
question that I knew you weregoing to ask. But when I think
about the answer, I go back toone of my core values, and that
is to provide some kind ofvaluable exchange with everyone
that I have an interaction with.
And that's really what I'mfocused on. I really want, you
(41:15):
know, I want the discussions andthe conversations that we have
to be valuable and helpful tohelp people move forward in how
they they define success. Sothat would be like number one,
of course, you know, I want togrow the business. I want to
(41:36):
help more engineers. I want tohelp more business leaders. I
want to help more emergingleaders, but those things will
come. But with everyinteraction, I want to add
value. Love it.
Aaron Moncur (41:51):
James, thank you so much for being on the show
today. You have certainlybrought value to me, and I have
every confidence that you havealso brought value to all of the
wonderful listeners who arereceiving this message and this
content. So thank you so muchagain for sharing your
experience and your insight andyour wisdom with all of us here
(42:13):
at the being an engineerpodcast. How can people get in
touch with you?
James Bryant (42:17):
You can reach me at James, at engineer your
success now.com. If you want to.
I guess a quicker way might bejust do a search or URL when at
work and@home.com
Aaron Moncur (42:34):
when at work and@home.com Yep, awesome. All
right. Well, James again, thankyou so much for being on the
show.
James Bryant (42:40):
No, thank you. It was a pleasure.
Aaron Moncur (42:42):
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you liked whatyou heard today, please share
the episode to learn how yourteam can leverage our team's
expertise developing advancedmanufacturing processes,
automated machines and customfixtures, complemented with
product design and R and Dservices. Visit us at Team
(43:05):
pipeline.us. To join a vibrantcommunity of engineers online.
Visit the wave. Dot, engineer,thank you for listening.
After which we say, Okay, now let's look at
(00:02):
your calendar. Are you spendingyour time on the things that you
say that are important to you?
And if you are great, that'swonderful. You. Hello and
welcome to the being an engineerpodcast. Today's guest is Dr
(00:28):
James Bryant, PhD and PE, aseasoned civil engineer turned
engineering coach and thefounder of engineer your success
LLC, with over two decades ofexperience in transportation
infrastructure and leadershipdevelopment, James now helps
engineers and business ownersachieve professional excellence
without sacrificing personalfulfillment. He's also the host
(00:51):
of the engineer your successpodcast, where he shares
strategies for winning at workand at home. James, thank you so
much for being with us today.
Oh, Aaron, it is my pleasure tobe here, and thank you so much
for having me on the show. Areyou sure that are my
qualifications okay for theshow? Because you have some
(01:11):
distinguished people here, soI'm thinking, you know, how did
I actually make the cut?
Aaron Moncur (01:17):
That's very kind of you to say, yeah. We're
talking about a little snafuwith a high What do I want to
say? Just kind of a famousengineer right before this? And
so anyway, James, you are morethan qualified to be here, and I
really appreciate you sharingyour time and all of the insight
and wisdom that you'll besharing with us here on the show
today. Yeah, I'm looking forwardto it. All right. So what? What
(01:40):
made you decide to become anengineer all those years ago?
Oh,
James Bryant (01:44):
man. You know, it's interesting when I look
back in terms of childhood andgrowing up, I was always good at
math and science. However, I didnot start off going into
engineering, per se, when I wentto the Philadelphia high school
for engineering and science, andwas doing well there. But when I
(02:06):
first started out in college, Iwas at Drexel University, and I
majored in commerce andengineering, which was business
with an engineering background.
At that time, it was a reallycool major for me, but I was
kind of that hybrid didn't workwell, because all of the
engineering companies, when itcame time to do internships,
they wanted people with moreengineering background. The
(02:26):
business folks, when it cametime for internships, wanted you
to be more in business. Soeventually I decided to switch
over to civil engineering, and Ithink it was the the impact of
the projects. I could seeroadways and I could see
bridges, and it to me, it waslooking at that impact. I wanted
(02:48):
to help make an impact onsociety and on communities.
Aaron Moncur (02:55):
We haven't had a lot of civil engineers on this
show. There have been a handfulover the years, and one of our
previous civil engineeringguests said something that
struck me as really interestingand something I hadn't
considered before. They talkedabout how, you know, I'm, I'm a
Product Design Engineer, right?
Or that's what I've done, isproduct design over the years.
(03:15):
Right now, we do some automationequipment and things like that
machine building. Butregardless, the things that me
and my teams build, they'reusually around for a few years,
right? And and then they kind ofgo away, yeah? But a civil
engineer, the things that thatyou all build are there for, you
know, 10s, if not hundreds ofyears, which is really kind of a
(03:36):
cool perspective to have,
James Bryant (03:40):
yeah, they're designed to be there for a
lifetime. I mean, we don'tdesign things that are not meant
to last, so we want to make surethat they last. Yeah,
Aaron Moncur (03:51):
yeah. Well, you spent quite a long time in civil
engineering and then eventually,kind of made your way into this
coaching profession. Tell us alittle bit about how that that
journey went for you. Well,
James Bryant (04:04):
you know, when I graduated from Virginia Tech
with my PhD, I kind of had mygrand plan. I was going to work
in the public sector for threeto five years, or work in the
private sector for three to fiveyears and then work at the
national level and then go to auniversity and teach and or
start a consulting firm. So overthe years, I started off working
(04:25):
for a highway maintenancecontractor. I did that for three
to five years, managingmaintenance on roadways and
bridges all across the country.
Then I took a role at theVirginia Department of
Transportation, where I wasmanaging their contract
maintenance unit. Then I spend asignificant amount of time
working for the TransportationResearch Board, looking at
really high level appliedresearch in transportation
(04:48):
infrastructure. And so all ofthis is fine, and along the way,
the thing that began to intrigueme was being able to mentor and
COVID. Coach, teammates, mentorand coach groups with
contractors, being able tofacilitate effective
communication when you'rebringing different people from
across the country, from acrossthe world, to try to address a
(05:10):
particular transportation issue,and being able to facilitate and
bring all of that in to create asolution. That process spoke to
me, that process began to callme, so I started to get more
into coaching. Did some lifecoaching certification, business
coaching certification.
(05:31):
Eventually got a John Maxwellteam certified leadership
trainer and coach. And then, asI was helping clients to provide
solutions for them. A strangething happened, Aaron, I began
to enjoy that more than Ienjoyed the engineering work
(05:52):
that I
Aaron Moncur (05:53):
was doing. Was this a surprise to you?
James Bryant (05:56):
I think it was a surprise. It shouldn't have
been, but it was a surprise,because I'm the type where I
typically enjoy what I do. I'mnot, if I don't enjoy it, I'm
not going to do it. So I thinkthe surprise was that I didn't
foresee that it was going topull me away.
Aaron Moncur (06:15):
So you started coaching. You got more and more
into it, you realized, wow, thisis really my calling. This is
what I want to be spending mytime doing nowadays. First of
all, how long has it been since,since you've first dipped your
toe in the pond of coaching andwhat is your focus these days?
When with your your coacheeclients,
James Bryant (06:39):
it's been seven years since I initially dipped
my toe into coaching. It's beenalmost three years since I've
been doing coaching, consulting,leadership development full
time. So that's kind of thething. And the interesting thing
in terms of generally what wework on, is helping people
understand that you don't haveto choose, per se between
(07:03):
excellence at work andexcellence in life. They don't
necessarily have to compete witheach other, but you can create a
life or a system for yourselfwhere you can achieve excellence
in both.
Aaron Moncur (07:18):
Some engineering buzzwords coming out already, a
system. I love that. Yeah, solet's talk about that a little
bit. You have this focus onexcellence in the workplace and
personal life are not mutuallyexclusive. What? What are some
of the obstacles that youcommonly see engineers falling
(07:38):
into that that maybe makes itdifficult to experience
excellence in both work andpersonal lives.
James Bryant (07:45):
It's interesting.
I would say the first one is,and it goes along the lines of
what I say a lot on my podcast.
And I'll say here is thatengineers are people too, and so
the same things that peoplestruggle with, in general,
engineers struggle with butthey're not many people that are
(08:07):
going to sit and talk to them ina way that they may or that
they're not many people that aregoing to talk to them in a way
that they can actually hear andreceive it at times. But what I
like to say is that the numberone thing that gets in the way
is people don't always thinkthat they deserve excellence in
both.
Aaron Moncur (08:27):
Oh, that's very interesting. Let's, let's hear a
little bit more about that. Whydo you think that's the case?
James Bryant (08:31):
You know, we come in. We come from a discipline
where you're constantlyachieving, you're constantly
designing, you're constantlyjudging, right? It's all the
time. It's what we have to do.
And so they don't. There'salways this self judgment that's
present. And there are manypeople that do excellent work,
(08:53):
but it's not it's they neverthink that it's good enough.
There's always something more.
And I get the continuousimprovement process, and so I'm
not downing that, but therecomes a point where you have to
be able to say, this is okay,like it's okay for me to do
well, it's okay for me to enjoylife and okay for me to be
(09:14):
excellent at work.
Aaron Moncur (09:16):
Do you think that's the case for most
professions, or do you thinkthere's something unique or
different about engineers thatmakes it more difficult for them
to accept that, that possibilityin life.
James Bryant (09:29):
The first, my first, I guess, response, is
that I think it's mostprofessions, the engineers, I
believe, sometimes, at least forthe clients that I have, there
are times when they get caughtin analysis paralysis, where
they're continuously thinking,they're continuously turning,
(09:51):
continuously fiddling and notnecessarily moving forward. That
doesn't necessarily address thethey don't feel worthy, or they
don't. Feel good enough, or theydon't feel deserving. But the
other thing that gets in the wayis analysis paralysis and the
inability to delegate.
Aaron Moncur (10:09):
What's the phrase something like Perfection is the
enemy of good? Or Perfection isthe enemy of done something like
that? I do think there'ssomething to that. You know,
engineers specifically, we wantto make things perfect, and we
sometimes have trouble walkingaway from a problem until it's
perfect, which, you know, in ourideal world would be all the
(10:31):
time we do a perfect solution,but the commercial realities of
the business of engineering makeit so that we usually can't make
it perfect, not if we want to beprofitable on the job as well,
and a valuable meaning,meaningful contributor to your
organization, sometimes goodenough has to be good enough,
James Bryant (10:52):
yes, good enough is not necessarily bad, right?
Yes. And that that's that's howthat shows up with most of my
clients.
Aaron Moncur (11:04):
I saw a quote. It was Aiken's law of, uh,
aerospace design, or somethinglike that online. It was, it
was, I think it was shared byIan mccathern. Shout out to my
buddy Ian out there, who's beenon the show several times
himself, and he shared thisquote. It was like Akins law
number eight or something. Andit said, I'm going to
(11:25):
paraphrase, there is nojustification for making a
design one bit better than therequirements specify. And I
loved that so much. Like itgoes, it goes contrary to, you
know, kind of our naturalinclinations, I think, as
engineers, right? Because wewant to make it perfect. But
(11:46):
again, when you step back fromlike, you know, just the
practical business ofengineering, there's no
justification for making adesign one bit better than the
requirements specify. I
James Bryant (11:58):
love that. That's true, and I love it. And
speaking of requirementsspecified, another thing that
I've run into is that clientsunderstand what they want from
their profession, from theirjob, from their businesses, from
their work. It's a little bitmore elusive when you start
defining what does success looklike in their life.
Aaron Moncur (12:22):
You have a methodology that you call
engineer your success. Yes,let's hear a little bit about
that. What is the engineer yoursuccess methodology?
James Bryant (12:31):
Well, first again, first and foremost, is we dispel
of this myth of balance, right?
I dispel of this myth becausebalance means things are equal.
They're not always going to beequal. I you when I first
started out, I had the engineersblueprint for balanced life. Now
that has emerged, or kind ofevolved into the engineers
(12:52):
blueprint for success. Sothere's still four steps in the
process. Number one, let's focuson what matters most. Let's
begin to dig up what are yourvalues, what's really important
to you. And then so we takeclients through a process where
we ask them, what's important.
We're able to take that down. Wego through this iterative
(13:12):
process, after which we say,Okay, now let's look at your
calendar. Are you spending yourtime on the things that you say
that are important to you, andif you are great, that's
wonderful in most cases, though,here they're not. They say
family is important. They saygetting a promotion is
(13:34):
important, or improving aparticular technical skill is
important. But when we begin tolook at the one resource that we
can't make any more of, which isour time. Now, you can use your
time more efficiently, butthere's still going to be 24
hours in the day. You're notgoing to make any more of it.
And when we look at thatresource and it doesn't line up,
they have a decision to make,either you're going to restate
(13:59):
what's important to you based onhow you're spending or investing
your time, or you're going tosay, okay, these things are
important to me. Now let'sdesign a plan where these things
can line up. So that's stepnumber two. We help clients
design a very detailed plan tohelp them get from where they
are to where they want to be,and we also help them to
(14:19):
visualize that process. And sostep two, three, visualization
is in there because I want themto see. What does success look
like. You know, if you're ableto invest your time in this
manner, what is that going tolook like? What impact is that
going to have on your career?
What impact is that going tohave on your business? Are you
(14:40):
now going to be able to get thepromotion? Are you now going to
be able to be home for dinner,whatever, however they define
success, which is why, when wetalk about success, when we talk
about what's important to you,we look at both work and home in
the the last step I. Is execute.
(15:02):
So what matters most, visualizewhat success looks like. Design
a plan, execute on that plan inthe way that I approach work,
life balance is a question thatI had to ask myself many years
ago when my youngest son wasborn. He was born at 26 weeks in
(15:23):
a day. I was working inWashington, DC, at the time. I
live in Richmond, Virginia, so Ihad an hour and a half, two hour
commute going each way. And, youknow, you get the the tight
shoulders and arms becauseyou're driving and you're just
really stressful. And I wasdoing that. I was I was making
it work. It work. It was mydream. Job was a great
opportunity for me, and so whenmy son was born, I'm sitting
(15:46):
here. We have a 14 month here athome. We got a newborn baby
that's there. My wife isstruggling because, you know, we
she we had the baby prematurely,and I had to ask myself, Aaron,
do you want to win at work? Iwas like, Yeah, I do. I really
do want to win at work. And Ithink I am. Do you want to win
(16:08):
at home? And I don't knowanybody, when I ask that
question, that they're going tosay, no. Now some engineers may
say, Well, what are you Whydon't you define winning? I
don't understand. Okay, I getthat right. It's not for me to
define what winning is like foryou, but it's for you. So do you
want to win at home? And thethird question was, am I winning
(16:30):
at work and at home? And becauseI could not answer that
question, yes, at that time,that led me on this journey to
develop the engineers blueprintfor success,
Aaron Moncur (16:45):
the product development expo or PDX is your
chance to learn from subjectmatter experts, providing
practical hands on training fordozens of different engineering
topics, Gd and T advancedsurface modeling, DFM, plating
and finishing techniques,programming robots, adhesive,
dispensing, prototyping, tipsand tricks and lots more. PDX
(17:08):
happens October 21 and 22nd inPhoenix, Arizona. Learn more at
PD Expo. Dot engineer, that's p,d, e, x, p, O dot engineer, and
what is the engineers blueprintfor success? Is that the four
(17:30):
step methodology that you justwalked us through? Okay, yeah,
great.
James Bryant (17:33):
That's the four step methodology, and we
typically will. I start almostany engagement by asking those
three questions.
Aaron Moncur (17:43):
Got it, are you winning at work? Or do you want
to win at work? Do you want towin at home? Are you? Yep, yeah.
That that can be a I'm thinkingback to your comments about
looking at your calendar andquantifying where you're
spending your time. And I thinkthat can be a hard pill for a
lot of us to swallow, right?
Probably most of us are going tosay, Well, my family is what's
(18:05):
most important to me. Mostpeople, I think, are just going
to default to that, not tominimize, right, that answer,
but probably that's where we'regoing to go. And then when we
look at our calendars, I knowlooking at myself, I've got my
Work calendar planned to a Tbeginning of every week. That is
where I start. I fill out mycalendar. These are the goals I
have for this week. Here is thetime I'm going to spend working
(18:29):
towards those goals. And youknow, by end of the morning on
Monday, I've got my week prettymuch all scheduled out, but I
don't do that for my family. Andso you know what? What does that
say? That? Like I said, thiscould be a tough pill to
swallow,
James Bryant (18:47):
and I think it is a tough pill to swallow, but
it's one worth swallowing. Andthe way that I like to frame it
is like nobody's here to judgeyou or anybody else for not
building out their schedulearound their family like that,
right? So, okay, great. Thequestion that I would have is,
are there areas with your familythat you want to improve, and if
(19:11):
there are areas that you want toimprove, then let's begin to
work in some scheduling, sometime to work on those areas of
improvement.
Aaron Moncur (19:22):
That is a simple but powerful tool. I know, using
a calendar strategically, theway I do for work is super
effective for getting thingsdone at work, right? It's almost
it's like I'm outsourcing myplanning to my calendar. Once
it's in the calendar, all I haveto do is follow the calendar.
It's easy, and so why not dothat with my personal life as
(19:44):
well? And
James Bryant (19:45):
I think the the answer is because, or a an
additional challenge is the factthat it's either it's your wife,
your kids, it's life. Stuff ishappening all the time, and it's
very dynamic. True. It's true.
It requires. It requiresdedication to communication.
Yeah, you have to activelycommunicate everything that's
(20:08):
going on so that your familylife will know what's happening.
So I do have a quick story aboutone client was a retired doctor.
And first, you know, he wastelling me how he his assistant
used to handle his calendar andhe, you know, now that she's
(20:29):
gone, he doesn't know what todo. And I'm like, Okay, well,
let's work on calendaring. Andhe's like, Well, I hate
calendaring. I never I hate itbecause the reminders come up
and I never it. Never, actually,I never follow it. It's like,
okay, well, what do you want towork on? Well, eventually, you
know, James was really importantto me, is the relationship with
(20:49):
my adult children. Wow, you knowwhat? What's going on? Well,
when I was building the medicalpractice, I spent a lot of time
building that practice andworking and not a lot of time
building relationships with mychildren, so I want to invest in
those relationships. So westarted going through this
(21:12):
process of really what mattersmost to you, but where we
started was with this calendar.
It's like, what? What are youtalking about? He tells you he
wants to do the relationships.
Why are you starting with thecalendar? So what we started
doing is saying, Okay, what'sreally what? What are the other
things that are important toyou? He's like, Well, he wants
to do some continuing education,some community service and some
(21:35):
other things. Because he'sretired now he has more time. So
let's get in the process ofbuilding your calendar around
those things that really matterto you. But I want to work on my
trust me. Let's do this for afew weeks. Let's get this, you
know, moving so he startedcalendaring two weeks past we
were on our call. He's like,this is great. Everything is
(21:56):
wonderful, falling into place,but one of my friends called and
they wanted to do something.
They wanted to go out to lunch,and I didn't have any space on
my calendar for it, because Ihad overbooked everything. So
Aaron, I'm like, okay, great.
Now what you do, and I want youto do, is create some gaps or
margin in your calendar forthose types of events. Doesn't
(22:18):
have to be every day. It couldbe once a week. Here's a time
that you're going to be able todelegate and flex to to say,
this is when you want to havelunch or do something with one
of your friends. So we starteddoing that. That starts working.
Well, then it was, hey, I knowwhen we first started this
engagement, you wanted to workon the relationship with your
(22:39):
adult children. Here's what Iwant you to do. I want you to
schedule some time on yourcalendar to talk to them. It's
like what I don't want them tothink that they're just a
commodity or another thing thatI have to do. Understand. Here's
what I want you to do. I wantyou to call them one on one,
say, Hey, I've been working witha coach, working to get things
(23:00):
in order to so that I can focuson those things that really
matter to me. And I want you toknow that you matter to me. So I
would love to spend 30 minutes aweek just dedicated time talking
to you. And he was skeptical. Hedid not think it was going he
(23:20):
had four children, three boys,one girl. So the three boys were
like, This is great. Their own.
Their comments were, is this theonly time that I'm going to get
a chance to talk to you? Can wetalk more? And he's like, yes.
And but his daughter rememberedall of the missed dinners,
(23:42):
remembered all of themisengagements, and was holding
on to that because she did notbelieve that things were going
to change. So he came to mepretty distraught about that,
and I said, Hey, this is what Iwant you to do. I still want you
to schedule that 30 minute timefor your daughter, but during
that time, if she doesn't showup, what I want you to do is to
(24:05):
start a gratitude practice, andI want you to start writing down
everything that you're gratefulfor, for your daughter, every
the woman that she's you know,become the person that she is.
What are you grateful for? Andhe started on that, and I also
encouraged him to start prayingfor his daughter. And from I was
like, Look, I want you to prayfor your daughter. Don't pray
(24:26):
that she changes. Don't none ofthat. Just pray for her well
being. So he started doing that.
About a month later, hisdaughter started showing up for
his the 30 minute calls. And sothat's a a way in which
calendaring, focusing on whatmatters most, can help you
achieve the success that youwant.
Aaron Moncur (24:48):
That's beautiful.
It's such a simple, deceptivelysimple tool and strategy, but so
powerful, right? Wow. Well, thisis typically the part where I
take a break and do a littleplug for. My company, but I'm
not going to do that today. I'mgoing to do something a little
bit different. I'm going to tellyou all about PDX, our product
development Expo, which iscoming up October 21 and 22nd in
Phoenix. It is an in personevent, two day in person event.
(25:13):
The cool thing about PDX is it'sa continuing education
opportunity for engineers. Sohere's what you can do. If you
show up at PDX, you can sign upfor literally, like a dozen. In
fact, there are dozens oftraining topics or training
sessions that you can attend,and these are like, in person,
(25:33):
practical, hands on training.
It's not like a person on apodium talking at you. You're
down there in the trenches withwhoever's doing the training
you're learning this ispractical information that you
can apply to your job rightaway. And the training topics,
for example, things likeadvanced surface modeling in CAD
(25:55):
or DFM for plastic injectionmolding and CNC machining,
Vision inspection, gluedispensing, plating and
finishing technologies, Gd and Tmetrology, inspection
techniques, like all these, allthese topics that are relevant
and important for engineersdeveloping physical products.
That's what you will learn at atPDX. It's going to be a great
(26:18):
time. You'll you'll meet otherengineers, like minded
engineers, you'll meet vendorsthere, you'll get training. And
we're excited. We're superexcited to see everyone there.
So that's October 21 and 22ndwe've rented out an entire
convention center for this. It'sgoing to be fun. It's going to
be a big deal. And we hope youmake it so that's it that ended
(26:39):
up being way longer than thetypical plug, I say, but
hopefully more interesting,since it's something different
than the typical plug. Yeah. Allright, so getting back to James,
Dr James here. What? Let's talkabout leadership. So for
engineers out there who want tomove into a leadership
environment or a leadershiprole, what are some skills that
(27:02):
you suggest they develop tomanage technical individuals,
other engineers,
James Bryant (27:10):
you have to be able to effectively communicate.
To me, that's number one. If youcan communicate, then you can't
equip your team to do what theyneed to do, you can't give them
the information that's needed tobe able to adequately complete a
task. So I will say that'snumber one. Number two is you
have to learn how to delegate.
And that's this is wherecommunication comes back, comes
(27:34):
back in, because if you want todelegate a task and you don't
communicate what yourexpectations are, what ex what
it is exactly that you wantyou're going to fail to give
them what they need to actuallydeliver. I think another one is
effective listening. You know,really being able to actively
(27:57):
listen to folks, to your teammembers, to understand what's
actually going on, to hearwhat's behind the question, or
what's behind the hesitation.
Aaron Moncur (28:11):
Yeah, sorry. Say that once more. I was reading
one of my notes. I'm justkidding. All right, active
listening. I actually do want toask you a question about this,
because I've heard this advicemy whole life, right? Active
listening is not thinking aboutwhat you want to say next. It's
intentionally focusing on whatyour counterpart is saying to
(28:31):
you. It's being in that momentand really listening. So I
struggle with that, if I'm beingcompletely honest, I feel like
this might be my own head trashhere, right? Other stuff that
I've dealt with in my life, butI've always felt like I'm not
the smartest person out there,like I struggle to keep up with
the intelligence of otherpeople, and if I don't feel like
(28:52):
I'm prepared on what to saynext, it makes me feel very
uncomfortable. I feel like likeI'm falling behind in the
conversation, like I'm not doingmy part, like I'm not coming
across as a smart person,whatever smart means. And when I
do spend a little bit of mymental resources, like thinking
(29:13):
about, okay, he said this,that's an interesting point. I'd
like to come back to that and,like, bring this other point
into it and see what he says. Ifeel like that that works for
me. What would you say to peoplewho are like, you know, active
listening is is great, but Ifeel like I need to do a little
(29:34):
bit of distracted listening aswell so that I can effectively
participate in the conversation,am I just kidding myself, or is
there, is there something tothat?
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James Bryant (30:31):
I think there is something to it. What I would
ask you is, have you experiencedany negative impacts of not
being the quote, unquote, activelistener that you think you
could be.
Aaron Moncur (30:45):
So this is great.
Your coaching is just shiningthrough. James, first of all, I
love that you phrased that as aquestion, right? You didn't just
tell me something. You asked me,which really makes me introspect
and more thoughtful about theanswer. And then you just
brought up a really great point,like, here's a tool to know if
it's not black and white, right?
Most of life is not black andwhite. You either do it this
(31:06):
way, or you do it or you're notdoing it correctly. There are
gradients in gray areas. Sothat's a great qualifier. Do I
feel like I've had negativeexperiences or problems with the
way that I listen. And generallyspeaking, I'd say, No, I don't
feel like I have those problems.
So great. All
James Bryant (31:25):
right, there's no real there's no real need to
even get into that discussionwith you. And so I would ask
other folks, if you findyourself being a distracted
listener. See, I think adistracted listener isn't able
to respond in a moment, adistracted listener is so
focused on what they want to saythat they don't see the changes,
(31:48):
the shift, the nuances of whatthe other person is saying, and
so they're so blinded by wherethey want to go that they can't
see where the other person isleading. That's not what you
described,
Aaron Moncur (32:02):
right? Yes, I this is a very what's the empowering
that's not quite the right word.
Can't think of the right word,but I feel like you've given me
permission to listen the waythat I think is effective for
me, which is a good feeling, andI think it illustrates another
principle of leadership, whichis, what do we really care
(32:24):
about, versus the morebureaucratic method of well, the
policy says to do this, so thisis what we're going to do. And
James, what you just helped meunderstand is, what do I really
care about? Is it 100% active,listening, never thinking any
tangential thoughts. Is thatwhat I really care about, or is
what I really care about, havingan effective conversation and
(32:47):
really communicating with theother party? And if that comes
along with a small percentage ofdistracted listening, that's
okay, because the goal is to
James Bryant (32:58):
have a conversation. Yeah, I don't call
it distracted listening. I thinkwhen you're what you described
to me, you said the other personis talking, you're listening,
and you say, that was a goodpoint. So you're acknowledging
and you're mentally that thisperson made a good point. You're
also making a connection saying,oh, I want to bring that up
(33:19):
because I want to connect it tothis other point, because I
think it will benefit you. No,it'll benefit the conversation.
Aaron Moncur (33:28):
There you go, taking it back to the why?
James Bryant (33:31):
Yep, it benefits the conversation. So if all of
your thoughts are focused againon you and what you want, as
opposed to where theconversation is going, or
support, as opposed to theperson that you're communicating
to what they want, that becomesthe problem. So it may be how we
define it.
Aaron Moncur (33:51):
You have helped fix a problem for me in this
quick conversation already. Thisis something that I've, I
wouldn't say, struggled with,but it's been, you know, gnawing
at the back of my mind for manyyears, and you've helped me to
reframe it in a way that that isacceptable for my own brain. So
thank you. Thank you very much.
You're quite welcome. All right,let's move into emotional
(34:12):
intelligence now. I think thisis an area where good leaders
have strong emotionalintelligence, but engineers, in
particular, I think we strugglewith emotional intelligence,
right? We'd rather look at ourshoes than look at someone in
the eyes and see what theirfacial expressions are saying.
At least, that is thestereotype. Now, to be honest, I
know plenty of engineers whohave excellent emotional
(34:34):
intelligence, but I thinkthere's some truth that, like on
the whole right, there is thatstereotype for a reason. So how?
How do engineers go aboutdeveloping emotional
intelligence? The first
James Bryant (34:50):
thing I would say is, is it important to you? If
you look at what you want to doand how you define success, is
emotional intelligence importantto you? I would say probably
some. Own. But it's not up to meto make that definition for you.
If you're going to lead peopleand you're going to be leading
an organization, then you needsome level of emotional
(35:10):
intelligence. Then you probablyneed to work to get better at
that, better at that part of itis growing in your level of
awareness that there is a thingcalled Emotional intelligence,
that there is there are otherpeople that are out there that
process information differentlythan you do. And this isn't
necessarily a straight emotionalintelligence analogy or story,
(35:35):
but I like to say thateverything I needed to learn
about communication I learned inthe first three years of
marriage, because my wife and Icommunicated differently, so I
had to learn how to package theinformation that I wanted to
deliver in a way that she couldreceive it and make a decision
or do something with it. Yes,no, maybe whatever it was, it
(35:55):
had to be packaged in a way thatshe could do that and to me that
was responding or beingemotionally intelligent in
effective communication in thatcontext, because if I'm
continuously talking in one wayor trying to deliver information
in a way that is an that shecan't hear, she can't hear me
because of the way that I'mpresenting it, that becomes an
(36:17):
issue.
Aaron Moncur (36:18):
Let me think about how I want to phrase this, this
next question, core values. Iknow that in my company in
pipeline, we have core values.
We have four core values. Numberone is, treat our customers
well, treat our team membersbetter. Number two is governed
by productivity, notbureaucracy. Number three is
(36:39):
suffocate chaos, promote order,and number four is prevent
surprises, bad surprises, goodsurprises are okay, and they
have really shaped the culturehere at Pipeline. In fact, I
don't think it's a stretch tosay that we are still in
business because of our culture,which, again, has been shaped by
(37:00):
our core values. Core valuesthat we talk about on a regular
basis, we make decisions basedon those. We recognize regularly
our team members for livingthose core values. So I
understand the importance ofcore values, at least in a
business setting, because that'stypically where they're talked
about, but there are also corevalues in in our personal lives,
(37:22):
right? Yes, and maybe that's notsomething we talk about as
often, because, well, I don'tknow why, but it isn't. How have
you helped your your coachingclients, identify what's really
important to them from apersonal standpoint, so that
they can align theirprofessional goals with their
(37:43):
personal goals.
James Bryant (37:47):
That's a very good question. The one comment that I
would make is, while you're as acompany, your core values shape
your culture, but your culturehelped to help to create those
core values. In the verybeginning, you helped to create
those core values was part ofwho you are, who you are. In
(38:07):
those things begin to resonatewith you. So there's a kind of
those things work hand in hand,because as the leader or owner
of a company, part of those corevalues are part of who you are
and how you operate.
Aaron Moncur (38:22):
I think that's a really important point. And I
think you're right. The corevalues they did come from me. In
this case, I'm the leader of thecompany. I think generally
speaking, core values alwayshave to come from whoever's at
the top right. They trickle downthroughout the organization and
not the other way around.
James Bryant (38:43):
Yeah. And then after so and what happens is
that, as you continue to evolve,there may be things that become
important to you, that mayemerge as values for you, and
eventually what you'll find isthat those will begin to trickle
into what the company does. Andthen, so that that's would be
the starting point. But in termsof helping people go through
(39:04):
their personal core values, wedo have some worksheets and
exercises that we take clientsthrough discover your core
values. We're asking you severalquestions to really understand
what resonates with you and whatreally defines who you are. But
it goes back to when we talkabout what focus on, what
matters most. Okay, here areyour core values. Why are they
(39:24):
your core values? Like, let'stalk about why. How are you
actually living them out?
Because if you're not livingthem out on a day to day basis,
are they really your corevalues, or are they just good
things to say, platitudes on awall? Yeah. So you have to be
able to, this is from a companyperspective, from a leadership
perspective, from a personalperspective, you have to live
(39:46):
out your core values. That's,that's part of being core if you
think about, you know, amaterial, a material that has
weak core strength, is going tobe a weak material, right? It's
going to be brittle. It's notyou're it's not going to be able
to withstand whatever the loadis going to be, right? Yeah, if
you think about core strength asan individual, and you're
(40:08):
working on your abs, or yourcore strength, if you don't have
a strong core, it's going to behard for you to carry the load.
And you use your core all thetime. Everything you lift, every
time you move. There's not atime that you're doing something
where you really don't use apart of your core. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur (40:31):
All right, James, well, let's see. We'll start
wrapping things up here. What?
What are your goals for yourcompany moving forward, how do
you plan to continue expandingyour impact in the engineering
and the coaching arena?
James Bryant (40:53):
I thought about this question. This is a
question that I knew you weregoing to ask. But when I think
about the answer, I go back toone of my core values, and that
is to provide some kind ofvaluable exchange with everyone
that I have an interaction with.
And that's really what I'mfocused on. I really want, you
(41:15):
know, I want the discussions andthe conversations that we have
to be valuable and helpful tohelp people move forward in how
they they define success. Sothat would be like number one,
of course, you know, I want togrow the business. I want to
(41:36):
help more engineers. I want tohelp more business leaders. I
want to help more emergingleaders, but those things will
come. But with everyinteraction, I want to add
value. Love it.
Aaron Moncur (41:51):
James, thank you so much for being on the show
today. You have certainlybrought value to me, and I have
every confidence that you havealso brought value to all of the
wonderful listeners who arereceiving this message and this
content. So thank you so muchagain for sharing your
experience and your insight andyour wisdom with all of us here
(42:13):
at the being an engineerpodcast. How can people get in
touch with you?
James Bryant (42:17):
You can reach me at James, at engineer your
success now.com. If you want to.
I guess a quicker way might bejust do a search or URL when at
work and@home.com
Aaron Moncur (42:34):
when at work and@home.com Yep, awesome. All
right. Well, James again, thankyou so much for being on the
show.
James Bryant (42:40):
No, thank you. It was a pleasure.
Aaron Moncur (42:42):
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you liked whatyou heard today, please share
the episode to learn how yourteam can leverage our team's
expertise developing advancedmanufacturing processes,
automated machines and customfixtures, complemented with
product design and R and Dservices. Visit us at Team
(43:05):
pipeline.us. To join a vibrantcommunity of engineers online.
Visit the wave. Dot, engineer,thank you for listening.
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